I've noticed an ebb and flow with the strength of NPC fleets I face. Early on, no sweat. Now, they are arduous, long, expensive battles. Is there a variable to keep down to face easier NPC fleets? Like I noticed the first SOW I bought, all of sudden I'm facing fleet galleons and brigs....

Check on the Help file first where you can find a nice table explaining the various ship types:
http://s2.piratesglory.com/?page=help&action=patrol

Also, the more ships you have the greater the strength of ships (and the boonty value). You can affect NPC fleets strength with Pacifism. NPC fleets gold coins boonty with Coastal Piracy and NPC fleets fame bounty with Coastal Patrol.

Ok, I see that there is a final leg of the table that can cause flux, but clearly the game knows I'm progressing and hence giving me tougher NPC fleets. How exactly is it tracking that? Number of ships? Number of fleets? Turns in the game?

Ok thanks but is it your owned total ships or the ships in the fleet you are using to attack?

For example as a pirate I am also running hawkers, but if that is hurting my plundering, I'll reduce them. If its simply the number of ships in my attacking fleet, I'll concentrate on upgradeing...

Total ships owned.

Does it reset if you sell or lose ships or are you stuck with the escalation? Do the values of the ships themselves matter? In other words, 10 ships is 10 ships, or 10 sloops will cause less escalation than 10 SOL? The levels of the ships themselves?

Oh and while I'm venting on this subject, I've lost a fortune to NPC fleets lately, epic amounts of money and levels for my stage in the game. It would be nice to know what ships (or at least how many) are in the fleet after you've attacked it! I'm always pouring good money after bad thinking its the last ship, only for a brig to be right behind.

You should use a Pacifism card to save on repair costs. If you don't have one you can make a deal with an established player who can cast it for you in exchange for your daily voodoo present. If you sen me a present and it turned out to be a useful card I would definitely cast it for you.

Also you can sell all ships except your highest level combat ship and the NPCs will be weaker since your total ship count is so low.
Increasing your combat ship level is the most important thing to get better combat performance. So get your current combat ship to level 10 before leveling up another combat ship. I believe a level 10 Sloop can beat a level 3 or 4 Sloop of War.

-Captain D

- Deleted

Keep the flaming to the union of honour

- SPASTIC -